Wolf Labyrinth
by smileyfacebabe
Summary: While trapped in the Argent's basement Stiles remembers a story his mother told him before she died. Going out on a limb, he does what he has to to save Erica and Boyd. After all, he's got nothing to lose. Nothing, nothing, tra-la-la...
1. Chapter 1

AN: HIIIII. You guys have like no idea how utterly excited for this story I am. It combines my favorite movie with my favorite currently airing television show. WHOOOO. This is literally the most effort I've put into plotting out a story before I write it and it's been working out pretty well. In case anyone is curious, for this story there isn't really any relationships building, but there is a sequel planned and there are relationships in that one. And as if no one could guess, this is completely AU from the basement scene with Gerard on. ENJOY!

Shout Out: SHOUT OUT TO CHOAS BABE, who is beautiful and wonderful and offered me this plot ferret of hers to play with. You're brilliant and I like the way your mind works, girl. 3

Disclaimer: I don't own anything here. But it's still beautiful and please, feel free to worship. ;)

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Stiles hit the ground, knees first, hands second. He barely had a chance to catch himself before there was a boot connecting with his side, sending him sprawling. His head hit against the concrete and he thought about what they'd say at his funeral. He hoped it wasn't something stupid, like the man had said for his mother; some bullshit about her being alive in a way no one else was. His mother had been alive in the very same way everyone else was and she had died the way 7.6 million people do each year.

Stiles wondered how many people were beaten to death in basements by crazy old men. That wasn't really something he could Google, but if he got out of there alive he was going to give it a shot.

Oh god, he wanted to get out of this alive. He tried to scramble to his feet, but Gerard laughed and another boot connected, this time against the side of his hip. He hit the concrete with a gritted cry and tried to roll away instead. A hand fisted in his jersey, hauling him back onto his feet, and he realized somewhere behind him someone was crying.

Stiles turned his head to the side and promptly lost his breath. Erica stared back at him with wet frantic eyes, her hair matted with dirt and blood and a long strip of black electrical tape over her mouth. Boyd just hung there, head tipped backward, but his eyes were open and glossy with panic.

_What the fuck is going on_, he thought. He wanted to rush over, to pull off the wires he saw wrapped around their wrists and get them out of there, but he didn't know how. He took a step toward them and was immediately yanked back to face Gerard, who was grinning at him from the bottom of the basement stairs.

"I wouldn't try it if I were you," Gerard said, grinning. A shudder traced down Stiles' spine and his heart went triple time.

"Why," Stiles said, throwing the word in his old wrinkled creepy face. He straightened his back as much as possible, but it was hard. He wanted to curl up and just focus on breathing. "Are you going to kill them?"

"No, just keep them comfortable."

"Are you going to kill me? Because that would be a really bad move, just so you know. Scott will find me, he knows my scent. It's really more of a stench really…" Stiles continued babbling on, his mind whirling. Gerard said the word comfortable, but he could hear Erica crying and under that the soft whine of electricity running through circuits. Gerard's idea of comfortable was fucking sick and Stiles wondered how the hell Erica and Boyd had even wound up there. He was pretty sure they hadn't been at the lacrosse game. What the hell were they doing in the Argent's basement? Did Chris know? Did Allison?

Another chill went down Stiles spine. Last time he had heard of Allison's hunter antics she'd be just as gun ho as her dearest, dead aunt. That thought left the taste of bile pooling in the back of his mouth, his heart stuttering in his chest, threatening to turn his breathing into a wrecked wheezing mess. Gerard's voice caught his attention again.

"That's a very vivid picture you paint there, Mister Stilinski. Let me paint one of my own. Your friend Scott McCall finds you bloody and broken, a message, and-"

Gerard continued to monologue and it was all Stiles could do to throw something glib back in his face. All Stiles could think was _Scott doesn't even answer his phone, he's never gonna find him. He's never gonna find me. _Gerard took a step toward him and despite an entire childhood playing superheroes and swearing up and down he'd never be scared of a villain, Stiles flinched back. It didn't help. Gerard grabbed him by the collar of his jersey and beat him until he couldn't feel his face, until his ribs were just one gigantic area of pain and his breath rattled in his chest. He probably would have continued to beat Stiles until he tired completely, but one of the hunter croons stuck their head in the door and told Gerard Allison was looking for him.

Stiles wondered again if Allison knew they were down there. He wondered what her mother would have thought of her now, this twisted, angry warrior girl who wanted everyone to hurt as much as she did. Her mother probably would have been pleased. Stiles wanted to scream at her, to shake her and say _you're not the only one here with a dead mother_ but he doubted it would do any good. He lay limply on the ground as Gerard stood up, listening to the sound of his voice but not his words. He didn't open his eyes until the basement door closed behind the old man, but the second that happened he didn't waste any time.

There were no remaining hunters in the basement with him. He hoisted himself up, ignoring the pull of his ribs and the ache in his shoulder from where he'd hit the ground. He stumbled toward Erica and Boyd, fingers reaching for the wires around them. Erica made a small sound in the back of her throat, but Stiles didn't realize it was a warning until the shock laced through his veins.

"Fuck," he breathed out. His voice was hoarse and the word cracked in the middle. He shook his hand out, feeling the ever so familiar feeling of being useless creep up and take hold of his chest like a vise. "_Fuck_," he swore, because he couldn't see any way to get the wires off of the werewolves without frying everyone's brain. He crouched down to study the battery, still shaking out his hand. The floorboards above him creaked and he went still, breathing stopping all together.

Erica made another noise above his head, even more frantic than the last. The creaking continued, like someone was walking across the room above them. It was probably Gerard coming back from assuring his granddaughter he was killing the nasty teenaged werewolves. Or maybe lying to her that he wasn't. _Fuck_, Stiles thought, hands shaking, _fuck, fuck, fuck_.

Stiles looked up, but there was a darkness creeping around the corners of his vision and all he could see where Erica's wet eyes and Boyd's clenched hands. He tried to breathe, to keep calm, and he realized belatedly that he was wheezing instead of breathing. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, blotting out everything, and tried to keep calm.

_The darkness around your vision is just goblins_, he told himself. _They're not going to hurt you. Mom said so. Every speck of darkness that ever scares you is just a mischievous goblin. _It was what his mother had told him when he was a child, curled up on his parents' bed and terrified of the dark. It was what he told himself every time he started to panic and the darkness crept it. It had stopped helping years ago, since he'd learned in class that the black around his vision was actually evidence of the lack of oxygen reaching his brain, but it was a mantra that he knew by heart.

The floorboards close to the basement door creaked and Boyd groaned something, a series of words Stiles couldn't understand. Stiles took his hands away from his eyes and looked up, wishing with all of his heart that there was something that could be done, some magic fucking carpet that could whisk them out of there.

A half-remembered story of his mother's clawed its way to the forefront of Stiles' mind and he went still. "Wish," he whispered. He stood up, knees weak, and fisted one hand in the material of Erica's shirt, his knuckles brushing her stomach through the fabric. He fisted the other hand in the material of Boyd's shirt, feeling his hands tremble against their bodies. Werewolves ran hot like furnace, but Stiles couldn't help but notice they were running a little hotter than usual, sweating and shaking, just like he was.

How _long_ had they been here? Stiles swallowed roughly, focusing all of his thoughts on believing. Maybe it wouldn't be like the mountain ash and it was therefore just another stupid story his mother had told him during bedtime when he was a kid. He couldn't think like that, though, so he threw all his power into believing that his mother wasn't just another person wandering the earth, waiting to die, and imagined her as he remembered her, brilliant and laughing and alive.

_Goblins,_ she said in his memory.

"Goblins," Stiles croaked. He blinked up at Erica and Boyd, seeing the confusion in their eyes, the pain and the fear and the desperation. He wondered if it was a mirror image of the riot of feelings in his own. He swallowed, darkness still creeping around the edges of his vision, and believed.

"Am I pack?"

Erica made a noise of confusion, but Boyd didn't. Boyd breathed, head dropping down, eyes closing momentarily. Boyd had taken Derek's words about pack seriously, Stiles realized, so he knew a little bit of the severity of what Stiles was asking. Stiles resisted the urge to shake them, figuring it would bother the wires and shock everyone again, but he wanted too. Energy was building in his bones, restless and aching, and he was terrified.

"Am I pack," he demanded. "You _need_ to accept me as pack for this to work."

Boyd said something behind his gag as he opened his eyes, but Stiles couldn't understand what he wanted. Stiles reached up to rip the gag off, but there was too much sweat and his hands were trembling too much. Stiles made a noise of frustration in the back of his throat, the closest to a growl he suspected he would ever get, and fisted his hand back in Boyd's shirt. Erica stared at him, incredulous, but Stiles was scared that if he said his plan aloud it would sound too silly and he would lose hope.

"I have a way out of here," he hissed. The floorboards creaked and Stiles could just barely pick up the sound of voices from the other side of the door. Erica made a _hurry up then_ noise and Boyd's knuckles went white with the pressure he was putting into clenching his hands. "I have a way out of here," Stiles insisted," but you need to accept me as pack. _Please_, just- nod if you agree!"

The door clicked and Stiles' stomach dropped. He hissed the words in their faces, shaking them a little despite his best efforts not to. A jolt went through his knuckles, but he didn't let go.

"Am. I. Pack?!"

Hesitantly, Boyd nodded. Erica nodded more forcefully, but the confusion was bright and thick on her face, clumped in her eyelashes along with her tears and the remains of her make-up. Stiles would have liked that they were a little more sure about it, but he didn't have any more time. The door swung open and someone from the top of the stairs said his name, turning Stiles' knees to jelly.

"I wish the goblins would come and take you away," Stiles whispered, barely enough breath in him to get the words out. For a very long moment, nothing happened. Stiles' felt his knees go numb and he started to sag, but then, all at once, things went straight to hell.

The lights flashed, bulbs blowing out one by one. The bulb directly above Stiles flashed out and someone shouted, from the floor above them, but Stiles didn't care. Stiles couldn't dreg up the energy to give two goddamn shits about what was happening above them, because the shadows were writhing and giggling, little shapes darting from one object to another. Something bumped into his shin and Stiles tried to keep balanced, but he tugged too hard on the material of his pack's shirts, only to find his pack was no longer hanging in front of him. He lurched forward, unbalanced, a scream building in the back of his throat, only to have something snag the back of his jersey sharply. His back hit the ground, knocking the air from his lungs in one neat rush, and he lay on the ground for a moment, eyes scrunched closed.

There was sand beneath his fingers. He pressed his hand against the ground and fought for breath. Behind him, somewhere to the right, someone chuckled and Stiles shot up, scrambling to his feet. He swayed dangerous for a second, vision swimming, before it cleared and he could see.

"Holy fuck," Stiles breathed, doubling over and pressing the scraped palms of his hands to his wobbling knees. He wheezed for breath, glancing up through his lashes at the man in front of him. He was tall, with a crazy blond hairdo Stiles was pretty sure had come straight out of an eighties fashion magazine. He was wearing a skintight black outfit, with too many spikes and sparkly bits for his mind to fully grasp. Lydia would have chewed him out for his fashion sense, Stiles thought a little hysterically. The man raised a single winged eyebrow at him, which drew Stiles attention to his mismatched eyes.

"You're the fucking Goblin King," Stiles wheezed eventually. The man in front of him snorted ineloquently, crossing his arms over his chest. It was a move that brought Derek straight to the forefront of his mind, which was a rather unpleasant thought. _Derek won't be happy you stole his pack and wished them away_, he thought wildly. A laugh bubbled in the back of his throat. He swallowed it down and tried to remember the right words needed to run the Labyrinth. His mom's story had been big on Right Words, he remembered vaguely. He just wasn't quite sure what they were.

"You're quite foul mouthed," the Goblin King mused. His voice was kind of nice, but also a little bit creepy. He sounded almost amused, which Stiles guessed was good. At least he didn't find Stiles annoying yet. "I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else," the Goblin King continued, "considering who your mother is. But still, respect would be nice. You _are_ in my realm after all."

Stiles' head jerked straight up, his breath vanishing as his heart leapt. "My mom," he gasped. _Of course_, he thought. "She ran the Labyrinth."

The Goblin King gave Stiles a look he couldn't decipher, but Stiles didn't care. It made sense; his mother had to have gotten the story from somewhere. She had always told it with such vigor, such wild motions, such a soft smile… But his _mother had been here_. Stiles couldn't catch his breath no matter how hard he tried.

Stiles was so wrapped up in the idea that _his mother had been here once_ that he almost forgot what he needed to say. The Goblin King didn't seem to mind waiting, though he took to leaning lazily against a crooked bare tree that stuck oddly up out of the sand. "I," he gasped. There was too much adrenaline running in his veins and he was tired and starving, having gotten too little sleep the night before the game and skipping lunch to research things that went bump in the night. "I have, uh, come to fight for the children."

The Goblin King raised his other eyebrow, until both hung like arching walkways high above his eyes. Stiles winced.

"What's said is said," the Goblin King drawled. "But you already knew that. You knew you would get a chance to try my Labyrinth to win back what you cast away."

"I didn't cast them away," the teenager snapped at him, straightening immediately. He would never, ever throw Erica and Boyd's lives away, even if one of them had charged him outrageously for a favor and the other had torn apart his Jeep to distract him. They were pains in the asses, but they were his classmates and Derek's pack-members. His pack-members too, dammit. His mom had never told him what would have happened had the child not been won back, but he always assumed the children wishes away and not won were turned into goblins. He didn't think Derek would be too happy if he came back with news that two of his betas were goblins.

"No?" The Goblin King asked, skeptically. "Still, it is highly unusual for children of such… Advanced age to be wished away." Stiles winced, because that was a _you're skating on thin ice _warning if he ever heard one. _Control your mouth, dude_, he told himself. It wouldn't be good for the Goblin King to stop finding him amusing and call him on his bullshit technicality. "Nevertheless," the blond man said, waving his hand lazily through the air, "mere curiosity and noble intentions do not change that you wished them away."

"Then I will take the test of the Labyrinth," Stiles said, shooting for formality and missing by a mile and a half. He gritted his teeth and fought to keep his tongue under control. "That's the game, right?" He continued with a clarification, just to be sure. "I win," he said, "and you give them back." The Goblin King's gaze fell heavy on his face, trailing up and down his body, accessing him. Stiles hadn't felt this weighed and found lacking since he had picked Lydia up for the Winter Dance. He swallowed. "I'm not leaving here without them."

The Goblin King pushed himself off the crooked bare tree and sauntered forward. It was a predator's move, his tall, thin body coming to tower over Stiles. Stiles looked up and tried to dreg up the fear he should have been feeling, but the sharp lines of the Goblin King's face were nothing like the wrinkled round edges of Gerard's and Stiles only had the energy to be terrified of one man a night. Besides the movement reminded him of Derek again, and he knew from experience Derek was almost always all bark and not bite. He obviously needed to spend less time around Derek if he was finding the predatorily movements of a powerful stranger familiar and borderline comforting. The Goblin King waved his hand and a clock appeared, floating in the air, its gold and ivory edges gleaming in the light. It had thirteen numbers.

"You have thirteen hours to reach the Castle in the Goblin City at the center of the Labyrinth," the Goblin King said. He sounded bored and excited and haughty, all at the same time. His smirk was a like a curled finger in a darkened doorway, everything you were told to be wary of but instead were just curious. "Or your pack-mates will become one of us forever. I suggest you get walking, boy."

The Goblin King then sauntered passed him and, between the space of one step to the next, transformed into a barn owl. He blinked at the creature, feeling something twist in his gut. Barn owls had been his mom's favorite animal.

"You know," Stiles called after the flying owl, "you're kind of overdramatic and creepy. Anyone ever told you that?"

The owl hooted softly and a warm wind pressed around Stiles, making his exposed skin feel cold and hot all at once. The air smelt heavily of spices and sand and something familiar and half-forgotten. Stiles surveyed the Labyrinth laid beneath him, squinting at the castle he could just barely make out in the distance. Stiles glanced at the floating clock, that had started going _tick-tock-tick-tock_ once the Goblin King had flown off, and for the first time since making the wish felt fear sweep through him and steal his stomach down to his toes.

"Stop that," he told himself. He smoothed his hands on his jersey and readjusted the elbow pads he was still wearing. His hands almost didn't shake at all, now that he had caught his breath and wasn't being beaten by an old man. His stomach stayed in the vicinity of his toes, however. "How hard can it be," he asked the Labyrinth in general. No one answered. "I mean, _Mom_ did it. If Mom could do it so can I."

Nothing moved except the wind. Nothing made a sound aside from the _thump_ of his heart in his chest and the clock hovering to the side. Three minutes had been wasted standing on the hill trying to talk himself into moving. That was what kicked him into gear more than anything and he took his first step forward, quickly followed by the next. By the time he got to the bottom of the hill he had the song from that Christmas movie about Santa growing up stuck in his head. He made a face at himself, because if he ended up humming _just put one foot in front of the other_ for the next thirteen hours he was going to go absolutely mad. He was so intent of his the placement of his feet and the song creeping through his head that he almost didn't notice the fairies flitting about through the air. The fairies corrected that problem pretty quickly.

"Ow," he yelped, flicking back from whatever had bitten him. He yanked his hand to his chest and came face to face with a flying barely clothed little woman with gossamer wings. "Holy shit," he said, blinking at her. She made a face at him before she darted into his face. He went a little cross-eyed trying to stare at her before he jerked back abruptly because she had _scratched_ him.

"What the _fuck_," he hissed, back pedaling quickly. "What kind of fucked up demon fairy _are you?_ Because I'm pretty sure that you're _not supposed to hurt me_, you little-"

The fairy darted in his face and took another swipe with her little claws. He reared back, nose flaring with pain that drowned out all of his other injuries. He started trying to swat the little fairy monster out of the air as he stumbled back, but she just giggled and ducked his arm. He reached up to touch his nose and his finger came away wet with a dot of blood. Stiles looked up, plans to squish that nasty little brat under his cleat firmly in mind, only to come face to face with twenty of them. He swallowed thickly and glanced at the wall in front of him, hoping to hell and back there was going to be a door somewhere in sight.

There was no door. The fairies swooped in and he yelped, throwing his arms over his head and taking off down the left side of the outer wall. Stiles figured he must have spent twenties minutes trying to duck the buzzing bitch squad and trying to find the stupid door into the Labyrinth before he completely lost it, tripping over the edge of a grumbling fountain and falling flat on his face. He scrambled back, the edges of the empty fountain digging into his side. He looked left and right, but the wall still held no signs of a door in sight.

"Oh _come on_," he shouted, batting at one of the fairies who had been darting in to claw/bite his throat. "Where the hell is the door into this Labyrinth already? Jesus _Christ_."

The fairies stopped, hovering in the air before him like a cloud of breast-possessing Satan-spawn mosquitoes. They shared a glance between them, several of them huffing in a kind of angry manner, and then there was the lovechild sound of a groan and a creak. Stiles turned his head and found that there was a huge black wooden door ten feet to his right, exactly where a door hadn't been twenty seconds before.

"You're kidding me," Stiles said, scrambling to his feet and edging away from the fairies. "All I had to do was _ask_?" The cloud of tiny bodies and furiously beating wings twitched which made Stiles flinch away from them and make a break for the opening door. He almost escaped without any more little scrapes and welts, but one last fairy managed to maim the shell of his ear as he tripped through the doorway and slammed into the far wall. The door slammed shut behind him and the fairies did not attempt to follow.

"I think I hate this place," Stiles said, to no one in particular. He stood up, grimacing when he found that the corridor he had leapt into was absolutely coated in glitter. There was glitter all over his shorts, from when he's fallen, and he tried to brush it off. He had no such luck and quietly came to terms with the fact that there was no way he was escaping this without looking like he'd spent the night in a gay club.

_Huh_, Stiles wondered. He wondered if _I went to a gay club to celebrate and forgot my Jeep and got beat up by someone's jealous boyfriend_ was going work as an excuse with his dad. Probably not. It was a good thing he had thirteen hours to think up a viable excuse, because it was probably going to take that long.

Stiles took a good look at the corridor he was in and promptly groaned. There were no turns and no obvious openings that he could see from where he was standing, the whole thing stretching out as far as the eye could see. He vaguely remembered this being part of his mother's story, but he didn't really remember how she had gotten out of it. He picked a direction at random, turning left and taking extra care to avoid tripping on the glitter-soaked branches and uneven stones that made up the path. He had had more than enough of falling down and collecting bruises for the night and his journey was only just starting.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Okay, so here's my attempt at chapter twooooo! Is everyone super excited? I tried to make the transition suitably Strange and Off, but please tell me if it isn't. Also tell me what'cha think about Erica's voice, because I'm still iffy about that. Enjoyyyyy.

Shout Out: Shout out to Choas Babe. High fiiiiive.

Disclaimer: Don't own anything, peace out.

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The wires sent little shocks down Erica's arms, making her muscles jump and flinch. She had never remembered a seizure after she had one, but she'd seen the video her classmates had taken as they laughed, she'd seen how her limbs flinched and jerked like a raggedy doll's, stuck outside the window of a moving car by a careless child. Panic made her breathing erratic, her chest tight, pain lancing through every sense she had known before, making every sense the Bite had given her a hinder instead of a help. She could hear Stiles' heartbeat racing through the air even before he was pushed down the stairs and dragged to his feet. She couldn't hear Gerard talking over the sound, though she could hear Stiles' throw away bravo comments faintly, like they were whispered in her ears. She lost track of time, tears building in her eyes, sounds crowding her ears. She lost feeling in her limbs for a while, jumping muscles becoming a thing that was happening across ages of space and time.

Gerard beat Stiles, which was one of the most difficult things Erica had ever been forced to watch in her life. It was just like in the woods, screaming at Allison, begging her to stop shooting Boyd and let them go. It was also a little bit like watching her mother slowly lose patience with her fits, with her medicine and the bills and the hospital visits, until the woman wanted nothing at all to do with her. Every time Gerard hit Stiles Erica screamed behind her gag and beside her Boyd flinched, struggling to get free and help him. Boyd liked Stiles, Erica knew that without needing to be told, because in class when Stiles mouthed off, or griped at Coach, or flailed his arms Boyd would swallow a chuckle and grin quietly to himself. The only thing that kept them from tearing apart their bindings and ripping the old man apart was the electricity jolting, stinging with each movement of the wires wrapped around the rope on their wrists. Erica was crying, tears and sweat sticking her hair to her face by the time Gerard vanished back upstairs. She had no clue why he was gone, but he was and Stiles was staggering to his feet, hand clutching his ribs, blood welling up in the scrape on his cheek and Erica's world narrowed down to him.

Stiles reached up to grab at the wires around the rope and she tried to tell him, tried to say _no_ or _stop _or _hide under the staircase and when they're distracted get out of here_. She'd crushed on Stiles for ages, had always imagined him swooping in to save her from the teasing, and she didn't want him here, hurt and bleeding, reaching to help her. But the tape over her mouth muffled her cry and his fingers curled around the wires, tugging at them, until they shocked them all. Boyd cried out, Stiles drew back, and Erica cried. Tears blurred her vision, but even over the accelerated thumping of Stiles' heart she could hear his muttered curses. She blinked and blinked, but her vision stated blurry and vague.

The ceiling creaked and Erica tried to focus her hearing, tried to figure out the size of the person walking above their head, but she couldn't. All she could hear was Boyd's gagged panting, the hitching noises caught in her own throat, and the thump of Stiles' heart. The most she could do when she concentrated was hear Boyd's heart too, lurching with every shock, and under that her own, a near duplicate to his. Boyd tried to say something, his worse a hoarse groan from a throat torn from screaming so much not even their super healing could fix it, but Erica could only catch a couple words under the gag.

"Stiles," she caught, "Gerard- hide- weapon- help- Allison."

There was more creaking, more footsteps pattering above their heads. Someone's voice, too deep to be Allison, too young to be Gerard. Everything in Erica's head was confined and dizzy, tinted puke brown-green, the color of pain. She tasted blood and bile in the back of her mouth, which was the taste of seizures and panic. She focused on Stiles and Boyd to keep from losing it completely.

She focused every sense she had, sight, smell, sound, touch, to ignore the sensation of taste. She cataloged every injury on Stiles' body, the scraped raw skin on his left side, reaching all the way up his temple. That would last for weeks, she knew, because Stiles was human, so breakable and tiny and easily killed. There was a cut on his lip, dripping blood down his bruised chin, with grit and dirt smeared into it. There were bags under his eyes, she noticed, and his arms drooped at his sides when he looked at them. He smelt of sweat and grass, like adrenaline and panic and fear, like anger, and under it all was his usual scent, the hormone-sweet stench she'd learned to associate with teenage boys and the page musk of books and the chemical tang that she knew was Adderall. When the sight and smell of Stiles didn't distract her fully she focused on the brush of Boyd's leg against hers, the heat of his hip touching hers. She reached for the feeling of him in her head, the feeling that used to echo with Derek's rage and Isaac's uncertainty, but now just felt like Boyd's fear and pain.

"Wish," Stiles muttered suddenly. She glanced at him, eyes stinging with tears, and he reached out to fist his hand in her shirt. She could feel his knuckles brush her stomach, fabric between his skin and hers. It felt like a lifetime ago that she would have killed to have his hand curled in the material of her shirt. The ceiling creaked, footsteps sounded. "Goblins," he said, which made Erica blink and brought her up short.

_Goblins_, she thought. _What the hell is a goblin?_ She stared at Stiles, the creaking and footsteps above them coming closer to the basement door. Desperation curled in her stomach like sour milk. Stiles swayed toward them, the grip he had on her shirt pulling her and jarring the wires. It shocked her, but they weren't touching skin and so the jolt didn't travel to him. She tried not to cry out and realized abruptly Stiles' had a hand fisted in Boyd's shirt too. He looked at them both, expression suddenly serious. Erica had only ever seen that expression on Stiles' face twice, once after the pool when he was dripping and calling the kanima an abomination and after that when they had threatened Lydia's life. Her whole body went tense with anxiety.

"Am I pack," Stiles asked quietly. Erica blinked at him, suddenly confused. She tried to say _what_ but the tape stopped her, turning the word into just another garble of syllables stuck in her throat. She stared at Stiles, trying to understand, and realized that the space in her head where Boyd was, where the pack had been, was changing. It felt strange, like an itch, and through it she could feel an echo of Boyd's emotions. In front of them Stiles twitched, a coiling bundle of energy building in his body.

Erica could have sworn the shadows behind him rippled, but she blinked and they were normal. Stiles repeated his question desperately, fingers tightening around their shirts as he spoke. He was practically begging them when he said, "You _need_ to accept me as pack for this to work."

_For what to work_, Erica wanted to scream. There were no windows, one door, several hunters walking around above their heads and Stiles all of a sudden had a plan? That he needed to be _pack_ to make work? What the _hell_ was going on? Boyd tried to say something, but she only caught three words. _Pack_, _something, _and _lightly_. She glanced between Stiles' face and what she could see of Boyd's, feeling like there was another conversation going on above her head.

"I have a way out of here," Stiles promised, while she cried and panted behind her gag. He didn't continue immediately and Erica made the same noise her mother made at her as a child whenever she'd kick her shoes and shuffle her feet, a scoffing kind of _hurry up_ noise. "But you need to accept me as pack. _Please_," he said, shaking them just the tiniest bit, "just- nod if you agree!"

The basement door clicked open. Erica's head jerked up, jolting electricity through her, and she blinked furiously as she tried to see. Stiles' heartbeat kicked up a notch in her ears and the quivering itchy feeling of the pack space in her head flinched as well. There was a figure in the doorway, too small to be one of the hunters, all curves and tumbling hair and delicate hands. _Allison_. Erica's heart raced to join Stiles' and she felt dirt beneath her palms, tasted blood and heard the _twang_ of the bow as the arrow flew through the air. She flinched, the wires jolted her and Stiles hissed his question again, his face inches from Erica's, just as she had always wished it would be.

Out of the corner of her eye she watched Boyd nod hesitantly. The pack space in her head whirled and she nodded, jerking her head up and down, hair sticking to the sweat on her neck, to the tears on her face. She didn't give a damn how the electricity spiked at her nerves, because if Stiles had a plan to get away from Allison and her crazy grandfather she was on board one hundred percent.

"I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now," Stiles whispered, breath ghosting across her cheek.

_What?_ Erica stared at him, at his lips and the trek of the blood and the bruise tucked underneath his scrape and the way his throat moved when he swallowed. Nothing happened except that Allison took a step down the stairs and beside her Boyd flinched like he'd been shot again and Erica's gut coiled with hatred and fear, the same feelings she'd felt in Scott's bedroom.

"Stiles," Allison said, quietly. Erica couldn't figure out the tone of her voice, but she hated her for saying Stiles' name like that. She felt something new in her head, in the space slotted beside her awareness of Boyd, and that made the surge of possessiveness over the beaten up boy feel _right. _The last sight she saw was the movement of Allison's hand flying to her face and then the world was plunged in darkness as the lights blew out and the shadows went wild. A sound filled the air, too low to be heard even by her improved ears, but it rattled through her bones, shifted down her spine. She tried to scream, to jerk back, to kick and to fight, because there were shapes inside those shadows, but she couldn't. The little shapes laughed, chortling and giggling and cackling like something out of Courage the Cowardly Dog as they raced toward her and before she could do anything they were grabbing her with their tiny clawed hand and hauling her down. Beside her Boyd howled, the sound stirring her wolf, the piece of her the Bite had made, all courage and flair, brave and strong, and she tried to howl back through her gag.

The creatures came closer and Stiles' heartbeat echoed in her head; she could feel his panic, his momentary elation at his plan working. He was in the space in her head beside Boyd, for one brilliant second power surged, but then claws grabbed her, tearing at her skin. She heard the fabric of her pants tearing, flickers of pain dotting her legs as the things climbed her. One of the claws caught her cheek as it climbed up and then, for a second, her hands were free. Then darkness swallowed her, the claws gripping her shoving her back and Erica fell. She fell for what felt like days, in a breathless atmosphere that reminded her a bit too forcefully of the gaps in her memory left behind by her epilepsy fits.

She hit the stone on her side after a period of time that seemed to last a decade, head smacking and the impact bruising her shoulder. She was gasping through her nose, gagging on the breath caught in her throat behind the tape, and her claws came out for a second, scraping against the stone. She felt Boyd hit the floor next to her, his knee smacking into her arm, his arm smacking into her head. Boyd was on his feet before she was, his body hunched over hers like he had in the woods, to protect her. Warmth settled into her ribs at that, which helped focus enough to calm down, but she pushed him back anyway. The burns around her wrist were already starting to fade, she noticed, but then Boyd pushed back, curving over her again and she'd have enough. She ripped the piece of tape off of her mouth and shoved him back so she could look at him.

He had the same wounds she did, holes in his clothes were the arrows had pierced, blood staining the fabric. His wrists were rubbed raw, blood caked against the cuffs of his jacket sleeves, but he stood tall and his fingers flexed as they stared at each other. The space inside her head, that had held Boyd since the day he accepted the Bite, that know held Stiles too, was throbbing with their presence.

"Stop that," she snapped, relief flooding her body, loosening her spine. "I can protect myself you know."

"Erica," Boyd said. His piece of tape was dangling from one white knuckled grip. His voice was tight and she found she couldn't look away from him, fear spiking through her. "Where are we?"

The walls were uneven brick and wood, curving around to make the room one giant circle. They were sitting in a circle indentation in the ground, which meant that there wasn't anywhere to put their backs safely. Erica scrambled up to stand next to Boyd, pressing her back against his as she took in the rest of the room. There was some kind of decoration shelf that spanned the wall to her left which curled around in the shape of a ribbon at head height and under that was a chair. It was the weirdest chair Erica had ever seen, which threw her off because she had been to IKEA with her mother when she was ten and had always thought she'd never see a weirder chair than theirs, but there it was. It was a circular too, the back of it curling around the arms. It looked like it was made out of horn and stone, with rings around the back bit that hung shimmering drapes. It was a huge chair, big enough to fit two people easily, and it was raised above the rest of the room by three stone steps.

"What the hell," she hissed. She twisted around to take in the rest of the room and found that there was one door and more than six windows of all shapes pressed into the walls, letting in the light from outside. There were a few candles perched in holders that stuck out from the wall, but none of them were lit; all of the lighting in the room came from the windows. Outside the windows she could see a sky, but she could have sworn that the sky had never looked like that. It drifted, the blue color slipping into the darkest indigo she'd ever seen for a second, the white clouds darkening into gray and then back again. Her breathing started to pick up, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. The room smelt strange, a mixture of things she only half recognized. There was something spicy in the air, like an old woman's cupboard was taken down and spilled across the floor, and the air tingled with something that tasted like summer and winter mixed together. And underneath that, tingling at the edge of her senses and lingering like the taste of morning breath in the back of her throat was something that was almost familiar; vanilla and feathers and dust.

She couldn't smell Stiles or see him and when she concentrated she couldn't hear his heartbeat. Wherever they were, Stiles wasn't.

"Boyd," she said, her claws pressing out of her fingertips. She felt the change take over her face, jaw cracking as her fangs slid out, and she hunched forward into the fighting position Derek had first taught them.

"I know," he growled back. She could feel him hunch into the fighting position at her back too, but his heartbeat was steadier than hers in her head. He was worried, but it wasn't like Boyd to panic. Gerard was gone, that was a good thing. They could handle whatever this place was gone as long as they weren't tied up.

An egg flew out of nowhere and hit Erica in the shoulder. She yelped, her shift sliding off in her surprise, and another egg smacked into her hip. She whirled around, trying to spot who was throwing them, but only ended up getting another egg to the face for her troubles. Boyd seemed to be having similar problems, staggering back against her and swiping at his face, yolk dripping from his claws. He had kept the shift better than she had, but he had taken to being a werewolf better than she had anyway.

"What the fuck," Boyd growled. The shadows giggled and another egg flew through the air, catching Boyd on the neck.

"You lot are just a waste of eggs," someone said. Erica pulled the shift to her and whirled around to face the voice, only to find there was a man sitting in the chair. Though she wasn't sure _man_ and _sitting _were the right words.

"Who the hell-" she tried to say, but another egg hit her face. She sputtered, tasting yolk, and felt a momentary flare of panic through her chest. _Can werewolves get salmonella_, she wondered. _Why didn't Derek teach us this stuff?_

"Do stop that," the man said, waving his hand around in a fashion that reminded Erica a lot of Stiles. "It stopped being funny by the fifth egg." The shadows groaned their disappointment. Erica blinked at them and they skittered around, darting close by as they raced to the next niche in the wall. The man sighed, a theatrical thing, and said, "do behave, we have guests."

The shadows turned into little creatures, green and gray, with clawed hands. They were all shapes and sizes, some of them having wings and some of them having hats, but all of them had beady little glowing red eyes. They reminded her of Derek's alpha eyes, how they shown and glinted in the darkness, and unease shivered down her spine. She swallowed as the little creatures filled the room, crawling over the uneven walls and plopping down to perch in the windowsills around them. There were too many to count properly, but Erica would bet money on there being more than fifty of them.

"Goblins," Boyd said, repeating Stiles earlier words. Her stomach dropped and settled somewhere around her ankles. Goosebumps broke out all over her skin, such a sharp difference from the sweat that still clung to her that she shivered.

_I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now_. That's what Stiles had whispered and apparently, if she had to guess, that's what had happened. She turned to face the man sprawled across the chair, meeting his amused mismatched eyes with her own.

"I hate to tell you this," she said, throwing bravo in his face just as Stiles had done to Gerard, "but the whole eighties thing went out of style years ago."

The man shrugged. His hair was white blond and completely out of control, like a rocker's from her mother's era, and there were some kind of wing-like make-up around his eyes. One of his eyes was brown and one was blue. When he smiled she could have sworn there was a hint of fang about his teeth.

Erica could have sworn she'd seem him somewhere before. Out of the corner of her eye or maybe in a dream. But any dream with that smile would have been a nightmare. Her entire life was a nightmare, though, wasn't it? Werewolves and hunters and giant lizards, but her life had been a nightmare before that, the teasing and the epilepsy and the silence that answers when she calls her mother's name. What was one nightmare traded out for another, she figured, the same thought she'd had when Derek had offered the Bite.

"Time moves strangely here," the strange man tossed back at her. He kicked a leg over the arm of the chair, his pants black and skin tight, which made the v-neck of his open poet's shirt drag down even further. He wore a necklace shaped like a wishbone, brown with a golden circle center. Erica eyed in curiously, her hands curling into fists until her claws dug tightly into the meat of her palms.

"Where's Stiles?"

"You might want to change back," the man said. He didn't seem to notice or care when Boyd growled at him, rolling his eyes instead. Erica had never seen someone so unafraid of a werewolf before; even Gerard's heart raced when they growled and howled. But the man in front of them had a steady heartbeat, that echoed a little bit through the floor beneath their feet. There was something strange about his heartbeat though, something she could only barely detect, even when she focused completely on the sound. It was like his heartbeat had a twin, another matching perfectly to the sound, but further away.

"My subjects dislike werewolves," the man continued, distracting her from his heartbeat. "It would benefit you if you would drop your wolfy features and pretend at being human. Otherwise they might steal more of the egg from their precious chickens and put them to use when I'm too bored to tell them to stop."

"Who the fuck _are_ you," Boyd said. His werewolf features slipped away slowly and she followed his example reluctantly. Boyd looked like he was ready to calmly rip someone's head off, Erica thought, and she completely agreed. If one more egg hit her body…

"I'm the Goblin King," he said, with a flourish and a grin that reminded Erica of the hyeanas of the Lion King. She hoped he couldn't hear her heartbeat, because that movie had always terrified her a little and her heart raced at the toothy dangerous way he smiled. "And you're in the Castle Beyond the Goblin City."

_Capitals implied_, Erica wondered sarcastically. It was something Stiles would have said, throw sarcasm back in the man's face. Which reminded her…

"Where is Stiles," she demanded. The goblins around her giggled like the demonic little brats she was coming to realize they were. The egg smeared in her hair, her jacket, and her shirt was drying already.

The Goblin Kind sighed. "He's running my Labyrinth," he explained, looking bored by the whole thing. Erica felt her eyebrows raise at his abuse of the implied capital and underneath that confusion.

"Why would he do that? Why are we here?"

"Because you were wished away and unless your little human pack member can make it through my Labyrinth in thirteen hours you will be mine." He gestured at a clock that stuck out from the wall, round with cogs and gears protruding behind it. Erica eyed the minute hand on it, which was just past the thirteen and inching slowly toward the one. When she glanced back the Goblin King was eyeing them curiously, leaning on one arm over the side of the chair.

"Would you like a way to watch him," he asked. It was almost a polite question, but there was a slight edge of mockery behind it. Eric gritted her teeth and together she and Boyd nodded their heads. The Goblin King scoffed, his lips curling into a smirk.

"Say please," he taunted.

Erica shared a look with Boyd and saw her anger, her fear, and her hope reflected out of his eyes. Stiles had wished them away because he knew it would work, so logically she mused that he knew about the stakes. If Stiles thought he could win, Erica believed in him. They'd be out of this hellhole freak-zone soon enough, so playing nice couldn't be so bad.

"Pretty please with a cherry on top," Boyd deadpanned. She resisted the urge to snort.

"And don't forget the whipped cream," she added sarcastically.

An egg sailed through the air and hit her on the shoulder. The goblins erupted into laughter that rang in her ears and she winced at their volume, at the painful pitch of their humor. The Goblin King smirked at them and twisted his wrist. Out of nowhere a crystal orb appeared, balanced in the palm of his hand. He flicked his wrist and it sailed through the air, much like the eggs before it, and Erica and Boyd flinched out of the way, both hitting the sides of the circular indent in the ground hard.

"See," the Goblin Kind said over the outrageous din of his minions' laughter. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Erica and Boyd whirled around to snarl at the Goblin King, but a voice cut through the air, slightly tinny and far away, and caused them to whirl around to stare at the air behind them. There was a wall of glass between them and the door and reflected on its surface was a landscape of sand and dust, a spare spattering of vine-like plants poking through the ground at random intervals. There were several stone fountains from what they could see and in the very center of the glass stood Stiles.

"Ow," Stiles yelped, flinching back from a little glimmering winged thing. "You goddamn little piece of _shit_!"

"Children these days," the Goblin King drawled from behind them. He sounded amused and bored all at once. Erica didn't tear her eyes off of Stiles to look at him, wouldn't give him the satisfaction. "Such language, such anger. It's such a pity."

"Fuck you," Boyd drawled. Erica shot him a grin, but the white-hot flare of happiness slid away quickly as Stiles cried out in pain again and staggered back. Boyd flinched next to her and leaned closer to the wall of glass, eyes narrowing. "What the hell are those things?"

"Mean little stingers," a goblin answered, cackling. Its voice was hoarse, but somehow childish. It was like a child had spent hours upon hours screaming only to turn around and crack a joke the second it was done. The sound made her stomach roll, like the sound of Gerard's laughter had.

"Faeries," their king corrected dully.

"Aren't fairies supposed to be nice and shit, like little people who grant wishes?"

For some reason Erica could not fathom Boyd's statement sent the Goblin King and his subjects into a fit of laughter that lasted minutes. She hunched her shoulders against the noise and focused on Stiles through the glass.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: So I don't know if you all noticed (probably not, there's only been two chapters before this), but I've been trying to dish out chapters a week apart, posted on Sunday. Unfortunately last week was the week before finals (finals start tomorrow, oh yipee) and I got stuck writing a Women In Literature paper and banging my head against the Rhetoric wall. But here we go, chapter three. Enjoy~

Disclaimer: Don't jack shit, not even the jacket I'm wearing right now (oops).

* * *

Twenty minutes down the straight corridor of brown brick and Stiles was ready to reconsider his Worst Day Ever award. It had gone to the day of his mother's death, tied with the day of her funeral for so long he couldn't even remember what it felt like to actually be this miserable. He had briefly considered it on the floor of the Sheriff's Department when the gunfire started, but at the time nothing could hold a candle to his mother's wobbling smile and the sight of her name carved into a headstone, flowers overflowing across the green grass. But his adrenaline was starting to wear off, which meant he was really beginning to feel Gerard's beating, plus his muscles ached from lacrosse, his head ached from hitting the basement floor, and he was starting to remember that he hadn't eaten since lunch. Also the eyestalks on the wall were starting to really freak him out.

"Stop looking at me," he said, swatting at a couple of outreaching stalks. He had thought they were some kind of weird weed at first, but then the first batch had blinked open their eyes at him. He still kind of considered them to be a weird weed, to be honest, but only because he had no idea what else they could be. Did they have thoughts? Did they have hidden mouths they used to breathe or was everything done like regular plants, through photosynthesis? How did they get water out here? He hadn't seen any since the fountain and even that water hadn't looked like it would be enough to keep all the eyestalks healthy. And what the hell was up with the glitter?

"No, seriously," Stiles said aloud, because he was 97% sure the Goblin King was watching him in some way and if he was going to wander his damn labyrinth he was going to do it his way, "what the absolute hell is up with all the glitter? I'm going to look like I was mugged by hookers when I get out of here. This cannot all be necessary."

There was glitter everywhere. It was on the walls, on the floor, on the fallen branches littered across his path and even on the sides of his socks. He'd touched the wall at first, but quickly made sure not to do that again, because his hand came away coated in glitter. It still clung under his nails and on the edge of his shorts, where he'd frantically tried to wipe it off. It was the kind of silvery light-catching kind of glitter that everyone imagined was in strip clubs and Las Vegas until they actually went to strip clubs and Las Vegas and realized how stupid that idea was. Or at least that's what Miss May, drag queen and knitter extraordinaire, had told him when he'd mentioned that he thought the Jungle would glimmer a little bit more.

Stiles was a little surprised that the Goblin King wasn't appearing out of thin air to defend his kingdom. He was pretty sure that in his mother's story the Goblin King had responded to that kind of taunt, but whatever. Stiles kept walking, keeping a good spacing from the walls at all times, and did his absolute best not the trip over the oddly placed rotting logs.

"There aren't even any trees around here," he grumbled, kicking one. The log seemed to retaliate by exploding apart at his kick, leaving a cloud of glitter behind for him to step right in when he jumped. "Oh come _on_," he complained. He wanted to say something about that being the most childish thing he'd ever seen, but he didn't want to spend the next four weeks finding glitter in his belly button. He continued on sullenly, casting a dark look at the sky above him.

Which reminded him; what the _hell_ was up with the sky? He could have sworn it was blue when he got there.

Thirty minutes after the log and he still hadn't seen an opening further into the labyrinth. The corridor hadn't curved at all and there didn't seem to be an end to it. He didn't remember this part of his mother's story, mostly because it had been more than five years since he'd heard it. He wished he'd paid more attention to her endless tales. Had she climbed the wall? It looked doable, but he didn't think that was how she got into the labyrinth.

"Where's the freaking way into the rest of this stupid maze," he wondered aloud, just in case this was another of those question tricks. Nothing happened. He tried again, asking a little bit nicer this time. "Where's the opening into the rest of the labyrinth?"

Nothing happened. Stiles kicked the wall he was pretty sure should have the rest of the labyrinth behind it. Still nothing happened, except that his cleat was even more sparkly now. He growled at it a little bit, feeling stupid. Stiles considered flopping down to sit on the ground, but there was glitter there.

"'Allo," someone said.

Stiles looked up with a jerk, spinning to look left and right. No one was there; the walls stretched as far as he could see, the brick seeming to turn red the father away it got. He glanced up, but there wasn't anyone sitting on the top of the wall either. He checked again, but no one was around.

"What," Stiles said, feeling a little bit like he would be pulling his hair out if it wasn't buzzed down.

"Down 'ere," the person said helpfully. Stiles turned around toward the sound, eyes falling down toward the bottom of the wall. There was a little blue and red thing there, about four bricks up from the ground. Stiles crouched down to get a good look at it, sore sides and legs protesting the movement, and found a little blue and yellow worm sticking out of a hole in the side of the wall. It was wearing a red scarf wrapping around its neck and it had bright red eyes to match. A shiver went down Stiles spine at the sight.

"You're a worm," Stiles said. He should have expected this, because his mother's stories had always had talking animals, but it was a worm wearing a scarf. Some things needed to be stated aloud to be accepted, Stiles thought faintly. Like werewolves and dead mothers; some things just weren't believable until they were said aloud.

"No," the little worm said, quite primly. "I'm a Wyrm."

Stiles blinked. "That's what I said," he pointed out.

"No it weren't," the little creature said. It was kind of ridiculously cheerful and everything it said was kind of cheerful. It had an accent too; one Stiles had heard on BBC but couldn't place.

"I'm not arguing with a worm," Stiles said, more to himself than to the worm.

"Wyrm," the thing chirped. Stiles still couldn't hear a difference. He felt a little bit like Scott must whenever Harris talked about chemical properties. It had taken him three weeks to find a way to get Scott to understand what was going to be on that test. That was before werewolves and kanimas and crazy hunter ex-girlfriends started popping up in their lives.

"Dude," he told the worm, "I'm pretty sure that's what I'm saying. Worm. It's not hard."

"Wyrm," the thing chirped again.

"_Worm_," Stiles repeated.

"Wyrm."

"W_or_m."

"_Wyrm_."

"Argh," Stiles shouted, throwing his arms up. "Whatever, dude. Hi."

The damn worm beamed at him. "'Allo," it repeated. Definitely an English accent. "Would you like to come inside and meet the missus? We've got tea."

Stiles had been in the labyrinth for an hour or so. He didn't have time for tea with a hearing defective worm and his missus. "No thanks," Stiles said, as nicely as he could. He felt kind of like an asshole nonetheless, because the worm was really nice.

"S'alright," the worm said, shrugging. Stiles hadn't been sure before if worms could shrug, but apparently blue scarf-wearing ones could. "Suit yourself."

"Thanks," Stiles said absently. He stood up, feeling large and awkward as he looked down at the little creature. "Well, I should, uh. I gotta go."

The worm wriggled at him. Stiles took that as his version of a wave. "So long," the worm called up at him. Stiles nodded at him and turned to walk away. He got about five feet before it occurred to him that the worm could know a way into the labyrinth.

"Oh god, I'm turning into Scott," he moaned, knocking himself on the head. He spun around, spotted the little blue worm turning to curl back into his hole and hopped back over. "Hey, dude, wait a minute."

The worm curled back around to face him, beaming. "Changed your mind 'bout meetin' the missus?"

"Uh, no. Do you know a way into the rest of the labyrinth? Like an opening or something?"

"'Course I do," the worm said. "There's one right in behind you!"

Stiles turned around. There was nothing there but a wall, with three eyestalks staring at him to his left side. Everything was covered in glitter. It was exactly the way it had been three minutes ago when he first walked by.

"No there's not," Stiles said. He was starting to think there wasn't something seriously wrong with this worm. First a hearing defect and now the little thing was seeing things? "That's just a wall."

"It just looks like a regular ol' wall," the worm assured him. He turned back around to stare at the little thing. It looked up at him with its bright red eyes, the same red as his jersey and shorts, the same red as the Alpha's eyes had been in the dark. The same red, incidentally, that Derek now had. Stiles sighed a little bit. "Go on," the worm said, cheerful, just as he had said everything else. No one could be that cheerful all the time, Stiles thought distantly, not even a worm. He wondered if it was on drugs and that's why it was seeing and hearing things. "Give it a try!"

Stiles twisted around and looked at the wall. He tried to remember what his mother had said about this part of her journey. All he could remember was the sound of her voice and her hand combing through his hair. He closed his eyes and dug the heels of his hands into the sockets, feeling ridiculous.

"Might as well," he grumbled, standing up. He remembered suddenly the part in the first Harry Potter book, when Harry was standing on the train station floor, looking at the pillar that held the secret door into Station 9 and ¾. _Take it at a run_, he thought. Ms. Weasley had said it was less scary that way, hadn't she? His mom had read him those books when he was a kid. They hadn't finished the third one before she died. He'd never finished the third one, actually.

"Fuck," he breathed, just before he lunged forward toward the wall.

He hid the brick hard, turning his head at the last second so that he wouldn't break his nose. He fell back with a groan, dropping all the way to the ground on his back. Everything hurt twice as much as it had before, including his head. Especially his head, actually, god fucking _dammit_.

"Huh," the worm said, from somewhere above his head. "S'odd. There's always been an openin' there before."

"Stiles," Erica shouted, forgetting the glass wall for a moment. She hit it with both hands flat, palms pressing against the surface. In front of her she could see the rise and fall of Stiles' chest, the way there was glitter on the crusted blood of his split lower lip. It looked like he was barely inches in front of her, like she could touch him if it wasn't for the glass. She stayed pressed against the wall for a second before pain wracked her body, like a shock from the battery in Gerard's basement. She wrenched backward with a snarl, turning to face the throne and the king on it.

"Don't touch the glass," the Goblin King said. He could have been bored, but Erica had heard his heart pick up, just the faintest bit, when Stiles hit the wall. She hadn't seen an emotion from him that wasn't disinterest or annoyance yet, but heartbeats didn't lie. The Goblin King's eyes were also fixed on the glass viewing wall behind her, which was another tell. Something was bothering his royal dickishness and Erica wanted to know what it was.

"Why isn't there an opening there," Boyd asked. His hands were fisted against his thighs and he wasn't looking at the king. He was looking at Stiles, who had yet to get up. "The worm said there was supposed to be an opening there."

"Wyrm," the Goblin King said.

Erica could hear a lot of different things since she took the Bite, but she couldn't hear a single difference in the way the Goblin King said it from the way Boyd had. She bit her tongue on that problem, though, because it was a distraction if she had ever seen one.

"Why isn't there an opening there," she demanded, staring the king down. He didn't spare her a look, just lounged in his throne, but his eyes didn't stray from the glass.

"The Labyrinth changes constantly," the Goblin King said. His heartbeat was perfectly steady. He waved his hand at the window behind him and gave her a rolling eloquent shrug. "There can't always be an opening there."

The Goblin King's heart hitched the slightest bit. Derek had taught her that heartbeats changed when the person was lying. Erica wasn't sure that the Goblin King was a person, but ticks were ticks. Worry twisted her gut and she twisted back around to stare at Stiles through the glass, reaching for him in her mind through the pack space.

Stiles was focusing on breathing, because breathing was easy. In and out, in and out. There were three things on the planet that Stiles could consider himself an expert in; his father, Scott, and breathing. He'd spent so much time focusing on his breathing after his mother's death that it was his automatic fall back. He'd focused on his breathing when driving Peter away from the school and again in the car with Gerard's hunters. Occasionally he'd focused on other people's breathing, like in the pool with Derek, on the floor with Derek, or with Erica and Isaac at the rave. So he closed his eyes, ignored the fact that he was going to look like a two dollar whore, and just breathed.

For a second he could have sworn he'd felt someone next to him, the sound of their breath against his ear, but when he opened his eyes nothing was there. He sat up, ran his hands over his buzz cut, and stared at the wall in front of him. _You can do this_, something inside of him assured him. _You can do this, I believe in you_.

"I can do this," he repeated aloud. "There is an opening there."

"No s'not," the worm argued, politely confused. "S'always been, but now there's not."

Stiles hoisted himself to his feet, feeling his ribs protest. They were definitely bruised, possibly cracked. He'd never cracked a rib before, but it probably hurt more than this. One of the guys in lacrosse last year had cracked one of his ribs and cried like a wuss, so he was pretty sure he was good. Or maybe he was just getting better at dealing with pain. Somehow he hoped not.

"There's an opening there, I just have to believe there is," Stiles told the worm, looking the thing dead in the idea. Deaton had said there was a spark in him. He might have been lying, to trick Stiles into believing him, and all the magic had really been in the mountain ash, but fuck that. There was a spark in him and he was going to get through this stupid labyrinth, end of story.

The worm continued to look skeptical. "If ya' say so," he chirped. Stiles nodded at him, breaking eye contact to look at the wall. It looked just like it had before, but looks could be deceiving. _Nothing is as it seems,_ Stiles thought.

"What the hell is he doing," Boyd said. Erica held her breath, because she was still reaching for Stiles in her head and she could feel something twinge down her spine. She reached out and grabbed Boyd's arm, pressing herself as close to the glass as she stared past Stiles at the wall. She felt like the pack space in her head was filled with Pop Rocks and soda, buzzing and fizzling at the edges.

Behind her the Goblin King made a noise and she could hear him shift in his seat. Even the goblins around the room quieted down. She could feel Boyd shift closer to her, pressing against her back as she leaned so close to the glass wall she could feel the itch of static on it. She believed Stiles could make the wall move with the same kind of desperate hope that she had felt well in her when Derek had said he could make the seizures stop. She pressed that belief through the window in her head, where the fizzing feeling was coming from.

"You can do it," she whispered, staring at the wall. "You can do it, Stiles, c'mon, you can do it."

Stiles breathed, closed his eyes, and concentrated like he had in front of the warehouse. He took one step and then another, focusing on the thought that there would be an opening there. He stepped forward and for a split second could feel the brick against the toe of his cleat, but then it disappeared and he stumbled forward, like he'd tripped down a low step, until he came up against another wall. He opened his eyes.

"Well blimey," the worm said. "There it is! I told ya' there was an opening right in front of ya'."

Stiles curled his hands into fists and whooped with joy. He hopped in the air in a circle, cheering at the sky. "Holy SHIT," he screamed. "I'm officially the coolest person I know. Scott and Derek can suck it!"

"What the _hell_," Boyd repeated. Erica remembered that he hadn't dealt with Stiles' mountain ash line, so he had no idea what Stiles could do. Hell, she wasn't sure Stile particularly knew what he could do either, but the wall had given way to him, so obviously he could do _something_.

They watched Stile jump around like a monkey for a minute, grinning like a dork. His lip was bleeding still and his cheering almost drowned out the sound of something making a small noise behind her. Erica tilted her head, pretending she was looking at Boyd, to peek at the Goblin King. He was stilling forward, one hand on the arm of his chair and the other curled under his chin. He was staring, face thoughtful, at the glass wall where Stiles was spinning in place, trying to decide which was to go.

"Hey, worm," Stiles called out. "Which was to the Castle Beyond the Goblin City?"

"Wyrm," the worm corrected. That thing was a little too cheerful for Erica's taste, it reminded her of Scott. She'd wanted to throttle him in middle school and that hadn't changed much since. She could see the Goblin King smirk with the corner of his mouth, the only part she could see around his hand.

"Dude, whatever, which way?"

"Well," the worm said, "left."

"Whoo baby," Stiles said. He took off toward the left and the view of the glass wall followed him, swinging around the corner like they were watching a movie. Stiles took a sharp right when he came to a turn, muttering _thank god, turns_ and then darted down the straight away. She could feel his building exhaustion in her head, the ache in his ribs and the throbbing of her head as if it was a numb, asleep limb. He couldn't keep running like he was, but he was going to try, she knew that like she knew Boyd wasn't going to leave her.

"Interesting," the Goblin King whispered behind her, barely a breath. Even with her enhanced hearing she barely heard him say it. She wanted to ask what was so interesting, but even if he answered she probably wouldn't like it. As long as Stiles was okay she didn't care.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: Oh my _god_, I am so sorry about the delay. There was a bunch of shit, like holidays and wisdom teeth removal and the return of Sherlock and a brief stint into the deep dark depths of the Hobbit fandom, all of which I feel terrible about. I also feel terrible because this chapter is mega, meag short. But I'm back in school and going to work regularly, which means I should be scribbling frantically between answering emails and not-actually-taking notes. I'm going to seriously try to update by next Sunday, but for now here's a mega short update while I wait for a stream for the last Sherlock episode.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything and I'm a terrible lazy human being omfg sorry.

* * *

Stiles took the first left he could and ten feet down that path hit a 'T'. One hallway went back toward the outside of the labyrinth, if he was keeping his mental map straight, and the other… He peeked around the corner and spotted something in the distance, just barely visible over the top of the labyrinth's walls. It didn't look much like a castle to him, but it was so far away that it was difficult to tell.

"Totally going that way then," Stiles muttered to himself. He took off down the hallway at a jog, ignoring how his sides ached. The hallways themselves were a little wider than the span of his arms if he held them straight out and the stones underneath his feet and along the walls were various sizes and shapes, though they were placed evenly enough. The hallway he was jogging down turned slightly to the right before turning sharply toward the left. The only problem was that it was a dead end.

"Dammit," he cursed, coming to a stop at the dead end. The far away shape he hoped was the castle was to his left, which meant the only option he had was to go back to the 'T' and turn toward the outside of the labyrinth. He tried to catch his breath, unexpectedly winded from jogging down the two hallways, and turned to stare at the shape in the distance. He leaned back against the wall behind him.

"Stiles, _no_," Eric shrieked. But Stiles couldn't hear her and it was too late already. The wall behind Stiles shifted into an opening, too fast to track, and Stiles fell backward.

"Ouch," Boyd muttered under his breath, wincing as he watched their packmate fall on his back. In the corner of his mind where he could feel Erica a jolt of pain inched through, along with the feeling of breathlessness. He winced a bit more in sympathy, reaching out to curl his hand around Erica's wrist, lest she throw herself at the glass wall again in frustration.

"Where the hell did that come from," she snapped, whirling to face the Goblin King. Boyd didn't much care for the way the glittery king acted, but at least he looked human. The goblins circling around them, skittering about and giggling whenever they found something Stiles did amusing was freaking him out. They reminded him of the kanima a little bit, with their green skin and little dirty claws. Some of them even hand tails, which was just a little bit more than he could handle.

The Goblin King rolled his eyes at Erica's question, like she was dumb, which made Boyd bristle more than anything else. "The Labyrinth is always changing," he said pointedly. "I do hate repeating myself, you should know."

"Oh my god," Stiles moaned on the other side of the glass wall. "What the _fuck_?"

"Language," the Goblin King muttered, slouching further into his chair.

_I'll give you some language,_ Boyd thought darkly.

Stiles laid on his back from the second time in the span of ten minutes, breathless and aching. He wasn't quite sure what had happened, just that he had tried to lean against a wall that apparently hadn't been there a second after it had. The opening was still there, his legs sticking through it, and he blinked at the sky.

"Alright," he said, scooting to sit up and dragging his legs up to his chest. The back of his head hurt from knocking against the stone and he ran his hands over his buzzed short hair, wincing when his fingers skimmed over the back of his skull. "So, the walls move. I can deal with that." He struggled to his feet and took in the hallway he was in now, which looked like all the other hallways had. There was the opening he fell through and then the hallway extended out, a choice to go left or right.

"Wots he thinks he's doing," something said, a little bit muffled. "Fallin' all over the fraggity walk-walk like that? Don't he know we're sleepin'?"

"What," Stiles asked, spinning in place, trying to spot the thing that was talking. He checked the walls for more little blue worms, but nothing caught his eye. "Christ, whatever," he muttered, turning to go to the left. He stopped short, however, confronted by the sight in front of him. It was a wall, right where the rest of the hallway had been. "Oh _come on_," he complained. He turned around, noticing that the opening he had fallen through was missing as well, which meant he only had one option.

"Right, because that's playing fair."

"_Fair_," the Goblin King repeated. Boyd wasn't sure, but he sounded either amused and extremely annoyed. "I would have thought if there was one boy to be taught the lesson that life isn't fair it would be _him_."

"What's that supposed to mean," Erica asked lowly. She looked scared for a second; Boyd felt it like a flash of lightning down his spine. Her heartbeat thundered in his ears, like it always did, even when she was out of his sight.

"It means exactly what it means," the Goblin King answered cryptically, "and nothing more."

Erica growled. She twisted around until she was facing the Goblin King and Boyd noticed that her claws were beginning to peek from her fingertips. "You talk like you know who Stiles is," she pointed out. "Like you've met him before." Boyd had to admit, Erica was right; the Goblin King had tossed out several critical comments about Stiles behavior, much like an uncle who hadn't seen someone since they were a baby and were noting all the things they thought would be different. "Have you met Stiles before?"

"No," the Goblin King said shortly.

"Then how do you know about Stiles?"

"He's a runner in my labyrinth," the Goblin King replied drolly. "Of course I know about him, it's in the magic." His heartbeat was steady, but something was off. Boyd didn't know anything about magic, or much about being a werewolf, to be honest, but he would have bet money on the fact that the Goblin King knew Stiles from somewhere else. It was in the way his eyes followed Stiles, the way he spoke, the way he took actual offense to Stiles' stupid comments about the eyestalks and the glitter. It reminded him a little of Derek, how the older boy had tried to act like Stiles was full of shit and didn't know anything when Stiles was probably the only one who had a clue what to do anymore. But there wasn't anything to do about it, because calling the Goblin King out on his shit would just piss him off and Boyd knew better than that. Erica rallied against the bullshit answer though, anger swirling in the pack space in his head, and he grabbed her, pulled her back against him.

"Let it go," he whispered. He reached through the pack space, past the part in there that now belonged to Stiles and tried to press his feeings against hers, to show her he wasn't buying it either. After a minute she turned and settled back, facing the glass wall once more, but not until she had given the Goblin King a snarl and a glare.

"I'm quaking in my boots," the Goblin King drawled. The goblins around them giggled, a pitch that made the hair on Boyd's arms stand straight up. "Honestly, I am."

"Fuck off," Boyd grumbled, turning back to pay attention to Stiles once more.

Stiles was walking down the hallway, one hand leaning against the wall. He didn't give a crap about the glitter getting all over his skin anymore, considering the number of times he'd fallen down already. He'd also given up looking for the voice, especially since he hadn't heard it since the two openings had disappeared. Whatever that thing was, it didn't matter. He needed to get to the castle. The hallway he was going down lead him back in the direction of the worm, or at least he thought so. He'd always been better with directions than Scott, but that wasn't saying much. The hallway got a little odd after a while, taking a sharp indent toward the castle as the whole thing zig-zagged, turning the edges of the walls into a point that he crept around warily. He hadn't any evidence of a living creature since the voice he hadn't been able to pinpoint and in his mother's story there had been that little dwarf guy that had helped her back at the front gate. His mother had called him something, something that started with 'H', but Stile couldn't think of it. It was on the tip of his tongue… But if the size of the fairy population outside said anything, that dude didn't still work outside the gate, spraying them away. Stiles wondered where he was and if he could get him to help too. He didn't have any jewelry to use as a bribe, though.

He turned a corner that lead toward the vague shape in the distance and saw an opening ahead. It looked a little bit like it opened into a courtyard of some sort, but Stiles couldn't tell all that well, because it was around another slight corner. He hurried up a little bit, curious to what would be in the courtyard. He was more than a little bit disturbed to find what he did.

"Oh my god," he exclaimed, jumping back a couple of steps. "What the _fuck_ are all those hands doing on that fucking column?"

They were large, way larger than human hands. Stiles wondered dimly if they were something really creepy, like mummified giant hands. Actually once that thought it struck it wouldn't leave him alone and he inched forward carefully, absolutely fascinated. They were all pointing, every finger but the index finger curled into the palm, and they were all pretty much facing different directions. There weren't enough hallways for all the hands, but as Stiles crept carefully around it he noticed that the hallway openings sort of moved, shifting along the wall. He assumed that all the hands got a chance to point to an opening at least sometime, which seemed kind of cool.

"Dude," he muttered, peering closely at one of the hands . It was _huge_. "These have _got_ to be mummified giant hands."

"They've got to be _what_," the Goblin King said. Erica sputtered in a little laugh and even Boyd felt a grin cracking his face. God, but wasn't that just like Stilinski? Mummified giant hands, what the _hell _went on in that kid's head?

"Well," Erica said, grinning, "are they?"

"No, they are not," the Goblin King said. He sounded baffled, but when Boyd peeked back the king looked to be grinning a little bit around the edge of the hand he was leaning on. "Mummified giant hands indeed," the king continued to grumble to himself. "Like I would be able to kill enough giants to get all the hands needed for all those pillars," he continued, "what a task that would be. Interesting idea though… It has merit."

"She'd be angry," one of the goblins nearest to the throne pointed out. "She likes the trollses."

The Goblin King sighed, seeming all of sudden like a sullen child. "Don't remind me," the slouching king muttered softly. To Boyd's shock and horror he then kicked at the goblin, who flew across the room with a high pitched little shriek. The shriek was sort of… gleeful?

"Me, me," the hordes of creatures called out. "Kick me next, kingy, kick me next." Boyd blinked at the lot of them, utterly baffled. They _liked_ the abuse? The goblin who had gotten kicked tottered back to its place at the bottom of the steps of the chair, where it sat down with a pointy toothed grin that stretched rather proudly across the width of its face.

"I flew," it told the other goblins smugly.

"Hush, or you're all going in the Bog," the Goblin King snapped. "I'm trying to see which hallway he'll take."


End file.
